Public Health

By Robert Field, professor of law and public health at Drexel University: Do you know anyone who died of polio or from a cup of water? If you live in America, probably not. But in many countries, such tragedies are still common. We in the United States owe our good fortune to the work of public health. It protects our health and well-being on a national scale. Public health is different from health care. The latter is the range of services we receive from doctors, nurses, and others.

In November 1989, the voters of Montgomery County overwhelmingly voted to create a county health department - 52,734 in favor, 31,646 opposed. Rosellen Burcin was one of the naysayers. Burcin is the local health officer for Lansdale Borough - and far from the only opposition voice among her counterparts. "It's a touchy subject," she says of the long-standing controversy over local health monitoring versus countywide monitoring. "The populace is perceiving that we (health officers)

At a time of growing public-health concerns - bioterrorism, West Nile disease, obesity - programs to develop experts to deal with such problems are sprouting in the Philadelphia region - and across the nation. These new programs train people for jobs in health departments, health systems, drug firms, and community health groups. There are now at least six graduate-level public-health programs in Southeastern Pennsylvania and one in South Jersey. Four have been launched in just the last year.

Delaware County residents would benefit from leadership in and coordination of public health systems, according to a study discussed Wednesday night at a rare nighttime County Council meeting. The study also identified gaps in coverage that indicate room for improvement in such areas as outreach for smoking and alcohol consumption, bicycle helmet use, Lyme disease, and sexually transmitted diseases. About 50 people attended the meeting with the council and researchers. In June 2008, the county contracted with Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health to survey its public health services and identify needs.

Philadelphia's only school of public health has a new dean. Marla Gold, an infectious disease specialist, stepped into the job this month at Drexel University. She replaces Robert O. Valdez, who resigned to become a professor in Drexel's business school, according to university officials. Gold didn't need to move far to become dean. Her new digs at 1505 Race St. are only a block from her AIDS/HIV clinic on Vine Street, where she and colleagues put together the largest practice of its kind in Philadelphia.

They threw everything but rotten tomatoes at Health Commissioner Maurice C. Clifford when he appeared before City Council late last month. The bad blood might surprise most folks since Dr. Clifford keeps an exceedingly low profile in a city that ranks right up there with the worst in the nation in terms of infant mortality, teen pregnancy and AIDS. In a nutshell, that's part of the problem: Dr. Clifford is a gentlemanly physician who, at 67, gives the impression he's stepping back from the fray, at a time when the city's health problems show no sign of slackening.

Robert M. Patterson, 63, of Center City, a professor of public health at Temple University who researched environmental health hazards, died of pancreatic cancer March 14 at home. During his career, Dr. Patterson was involved in 35 research projects, including setting guidelines for workplace exposure to chemical substances, studying the exposure of commuters to motor-vehicle pollutants, and researching the electrical conductivity of power-line workers' boots. He helped Philadelphia Air Management Services develop asbestos regulation and served on Philadelphia's Air Pollution Control Board.

James McAnaney, 55, of Northeast Philadelphia, an investigator for agencies tracking AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases who devoted half his life to public health, died Thursday of non-Hodgkins lymphoma at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Mr. McAnaney began his career in New York as a U.S. Centers for Disease Control representative in the early 1980s. "He canvassed neighborhoods and knocked on doors in Brooklyn, investigating sexually transmitted diseases," said his wife of 16 years, Suzy Drinan.

For Allison Oler, the severe shortage of influenza vaccine is more than a story on the nightly news. As the mother of three children, she knows that her house will be incapacitated for a week if - or is it when? - the flu arrives. Worse, as a primary-care physician, she has several thousand high-risk patients who are now without an inoculation that could save their lives. Five years ago, there wasn't much interest in the vaccine; now it is more precious than a winning lottery ticket, and its distribution seems just as random.

Philadelphia police said Saturday that a man was being questioned by investigators as a person of interest in connection with the death of a recent Drexel University graduate. Jasmine Wright, 27, was strangled inside her West Philadelphia apartment last week, police said. After she was not heard from, Wright's family asked police to check the apartment. Police found no signs of forced entry when they entered the unit Thursday and discovered her body. Evidence has led investigators to believe that Wright may have known her assailant.

"LIKE A PUNCH in the gut. " That's how Keith Hooks said he felt upon hearing that Jasmine Wright, 27, his kind and quiet neighbor, had been found brutally murdered in her apartment. "It's just sick," Hooks, 53, said last night, mere feet from the slain Drexel University grad's front door, directly beside his own. "She was professional and sweet," Hooks said. "She just went about her business and didn't bother anybody. "And she certainly didn't deserve this. " Wright's body was found about 2:30 p.m. inside her third-floor apartment on 50th Street near Locust in West Philly, Homicide Capt.

As a pediatrician at the Cobbs Creek Primary Care Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Roy Wade Jr. employs the usual tools of his trade, such as thermometer, tongue depressor, and stethoscope. But as a researcher, he is working to develop a different kind of tool kit: a questionnaire to help pediatricians figure out which of their young patients are at greatest risk to develop early cognitive, emotional, and health problems. Wade's work builds on the landmark 1998 ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences)

More than a decade ago, city health inspectors would see occasional mouse droppings at Philadelphia International Airport, black residue and slime inside ice machines, and eggs and other cold foods kept at temperatures too warm. In 2011, the airport approved the hiring of two former city health inspectors, and the results have been dramatic. Violations for risk factors known to cause food-borne illness have significantly declined. Today, the airport's 27 eat-in restaurants have a better average than the citywide numbers for 5,000 non-airport eat-in restaurants.

SUDDENLY, the debate over vaccines has gone mainstream. Amid a measles breakout - a disease that doctors believed had been eradicated a decade ago - a pair of Republican politicians came under fire for seemingly anti-vaccination comments. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that vaccinations should largely be left to parents, while Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he believed that vaccinations can lead to "mental disorders" in children. The idea that vaccines cause autism has been debunked, but the declining vaccination rate is making the measles resurgence possible.

Pandering has no boundaries in politics, even when public health is at stake. Thus we had a U.S. senator and the governor of the most densely populated state in America suggesting in the midst of a measles outbreak that it's OK not to vaccinate children against contagious diseases. New Jersey's hypocritical Gov. Christie, who was once so insistent on protecting the public that he had a healthy nurse returning from Ebola-ravaged Africa involuntarily quarantined, told reporters in London this week that "parents need to have some measure of choice" as to having their children vaccinated.

NOW VACCINATION is a political issue? It bubbled beneath the surface before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie injected himself into it with an off-hand (and later walked-back) remark about inoculations. But after Big Boy mentioned it, the floodgates of cable TV, Twitter and Facebook swung open. As a public-health issue degenerates into a political issue, I'm here to sort a few things out. (Spoiler alert! I am pro-vaccination.) When I was in elementary school (and leeches were used by doctors)

CAMBRIDGE, England - After Gov. Christie said Monday that parents need "some measure of choice" on vaccinating their children, stirring alarm that such views would hurt the fight against a measles outbreak, his office moved quickly to clarify his position. The dustup overshadowed the second day of what Christie has planned mainly as a trade mission. Monday morning, the Republican governor, a potential candidate for president in 2016, responded to a question about the spread of measles by saying that while he and his wife had their children vaccinated, parental concerns warrant "balance.

At the start of the life-or-death competition in the Hunger Games series, the contestants are presented with a cornucopia teeming with tools for their survival. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is warned to steer clear. As much as she needs the resources, charging into the stockpile will put her in the throes of a savage competition for dominance. Those seeking the keys to a healthy diet these days face a similar predicament. Decades of studies have produced vast stores of data about the foods and nutrients likely to enhance and extend life.

CITY COUNCIL is prepared to fight the latest invader into the lives, homes and mattresses of Philadelphians - the dreaded bedbug. Imagine now a task force established specifically to address the growing problem of bedbugs creeping into the small fibers of rowhouses across the city. Beyond that, Council will consider a Bedbug SWAT Team to work in conjunction with the Bedbug Task Force. Councilman Mark Squilla said he had bedbugs in April, and according to one witness who testified before the Committee on Public Health and Human Services yesterday, Squilla won't be able to "start relaxing" for two years.